


Whatever You Can Give

by daisyqiaolianmay (skinman)



Series: The Parts That Make A Whole [4]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Academy era references, F/M, Hints about their past, Post 3x04, Reunions, Revelations, Romantic-relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-25
Updated: 2015-10-25
Packaged: 2018-04-28 01:49:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5073313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skinman/pseuds/daisyqiaolianmay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the prompt: 'How about when May said "The reason Andrew left me had nothing to do with SHIELD. "It's about me. It always has been." she wasn't finished which led to a confession to Phil: "It's about me. I've always been in love with someone else. Always have been."</p><p>A Post-reunion Philinda fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whatever You Can Give

Honestly, Phil Coulson was a mess. He didn’t know how he’d managed to hold it together this long. He was Director, agents were relying on him, and right now he could barely rely on himself.

Andrew’s presence just made everything harder. They needed him, but Phil avoided actual contact with the psychiatrist as much as possible. Not really because of May, but because someone psychoanalysing him was the last thing he needed right now.

_‘You're the man in charge, but I'm in charge of you, remember?’_

Her words had more truth to them than either May or he had recognised at the time. He hadn’t even realised it, how out of his depth he was without her, until a couple of weeks ago.

_‘Okay, so I’m angry, can you honestly blame me? But you know what ‘Director’ at least I’m not moping around waiting for her to come back like some lost puppy.’_

She’d stormed off.

Daisy’s words had been unexpected, sharp, unusually so. She was hurting too. She was better at hiding it, channelling the sense of abandonment they both felt with firm fists thrown against heavy punch bags. Phil didn’t have an outlet, he wasn’t the sort of man that could bury himself in his work and forget everything he was feeling, but he tried anyway.

Then suddenly she was back. He’d expected to even out again, but his emotions were even more turbulent, even more convoluted in her presence.

Emotions had always been complicated when it came to Melinda May. He’d spent the majority of his academy years shifting to and from ‘we’d be damn good together.’ and ‘maybe just friends is what’s best.’ Inter-S.H.I.E.L.D relationships were always complicated; long periods of distance, too many secrets, no chance of a normal life. Concessions, constant concessions. Broken promises. Too much to lose.

They’d been separated after graduation. Phil had been assigned to the Triskelion to work as a field agent under Agent Fury, training to be a leader, to be a strategist, to organise missions rather than enact them. Melinda had been commissioned to work as part of a mobile strike team, two specialists, a supervising officer and a junior agent, travelling almost constantly. Every few months she’d make it back to DC, staying a week, maybe two, for de-briefings, to sign off paperwork, making time for him in the gaps. He’d always been grateful of that.

 Often she’d just turned up on his doorstep, a split lip or bruised cheek marring her face, but smiling nonetheless, groceries in her arms, dumping the contents on the kitchen counter. She’d fall down on his old, familiar couch with a sigh, waiting. The smell of roasted potatoes, steaming vegetables, and spices hanging in the air. It was their own unspoken ritual.

Even later, when they’d grown up a bit, when they were with other people, when they hadn’t seen each other for months, they’d been able to slip into the same old patterns. Coulson would find a slightly implausible excuse to come and visit her, his excuse would make her smile, and she’d enjoy his company for a while. A good few hours, a day or two if he was lucky and she let him stay the night. On the couch, of course. They both knew it would be a bad call to cross that line again.

Almost 30 years of needing Melinda May.

‘Friends’ had been the relationship she had insisted on… that was all she could give him. He took friends over nothing with barely a second thought. And they never spoke about it again, ever.

She was an immovable force in his life, and he could never compromise that.

She was packing socks when he entered her room, bent over a large, black backpack. Just like the first time. The bed folded down, visibly unslept in. She was taking some of the things she’d left behind. She was leaving… again.

He leant against the door frame. Just watching.

“Can you give these to Skye? She wears them more than me she might as well have them.” There was a tightness in May’s tone. She handed Phil a pair of thick, deep purple socks, the Chinese character for ‘sunrise’ neatly stitched onto the ankle in grey. Daisy often used them for plodding around the rec area. He hadn’t even realised they weren’t hers.

“Daisy.” Phil corrected May, smiling. It was amusing to be the one doing the correcting instead of the one in need of correction.

“Right.” May breathed, nodding. There was a lot to get used to. A lot had changed.

“Have you spoken to her?” Coulson inquired, accepting the socks with his good hand and stepping into the room a little further.

May nodded, turned away, back to packing. “We talked.”

“About?”

May scoffed, “She doesn’t know any more about why I left than you do, okay?”

“I wasn’t…” He began, but the words fell away when he realised that she was right. That was exactly what he’d been wondering.

“Phil, I know you.” May responded, straightening up and facing him, her dark eyes warm yet unyielding, “but, please, this time I need you to leave it alone.”

“Just as long as you’re okay?” He phrased it like a question. A dent of concern between his brows.

“I’m good.” She said shortly, before returning to her packing.

“Good.” Phil’s jaw clenched as he settled down on the bed beside the backpack, watching her downcast face, “Because, I was serious earlier; if you want Andrew gone, he’s gone.”

“It’s not Andrew.” May gritted her teeth.

“Then what is it? Whatever it is I’ll deal with it, with them. We can work it out.” Coulson shot back, desperate, confident that he could fix whatever it was that was forcing May to keep her distance.

“Stop.” The look she sent him was deadly, a fearsome warning glare, “Stop pushing this, Phil.”

Coulson gestured frantically with his hands, “I can fix it, whatever it is. We’ll work it out. I promise I will do whatever I can to-”

“You can’t fix the past.” May interrupted sharply.

There was a moment of stunned silence before Phil continued, “What?”

“You almost died, Phil. Again.” Her tongue was sharp as a razor.

Coulson didn’t respond, frozen in stunned silence.

“I went to your funeral, you know. I stood there and I watched as they lowered your casket into the ground. I thought you were gone.” May’s face was completely set. Grief and pain. Overwhelming emotion piling up behind her stony façade.

“I’m not… I didn’t…” Phil stumbled over what were meant to be reassuring words, but even to him they sounded more like excuses.

“But I thought you were, and it hurt like hell.” May surmised, tears pooling.

Phil Coulson could count on one hand the amount of times he’d seen Melinda May cry.

“And I hadn’t seen you in over a year then.” May seemed to be almost shaking.

“Mel, why are you telling me this?” He asked softly.

“Andrew deserved more. I love him, I do, but…” Her voice was barely more than a gritty whisper, “I told you. It's about me. I've always been in love with someone else… Always have been.”

Phil stood up, holding onto the bedpost to steady himself. His blue eyes were wide open, bright with a reserved sort of wonder, like a small child’s.

“I thought I was strong… I thought…” May pursed her lips tight, willing herself to stop talking. She zipped up her backpack aggressively. “I have to go.”

She made for the door, but Coulson blocked her path. He pressed his back against it, hard, and it clicked shut.

“I’m not going to die on you.” He told her, firmly, the words matter-of-fact.

She titled her head at him, annoyed at herself, annoyed at him for obstructing her exit. “Get out the way, Phil.”

“If it’s all the same to you I’d like to say my piece first.” He told her.

“It’s not.” She said, staring him down.

“I’m going to say it anyway.” He shrugged, jaw taught in anticipation, “I’m not going anywhere, Agent May. And, I think you know this already, but I need you here. I want you here, with me, on your terms, I don’t care, and anything you’ll give me I’ll take.”

He’d given her a similar speech two decades ago, and she’d taken a step back, missed her opportunity.

_‘Phil, you know you mean… a lot to me. But, we’re…’_

_‘Never going to be more than what we are.’_

_‘I’m…’_

_‘It’s okay, Mel. Like I said, whatever you give me I’ll take it.’_

She’d lied. Why? Was it Fear? Pride? They’d transgressed, crossed ‘that’ line, and she had fallen just a little bit more in love with him. Two days later she was gone, a flight to Israel, total immersion in the mission, no contact for months. It had taken her days to gather the courage to go see him when she got back. She’d thrown herself into his arms and he’d willing accepted. He’d asked for nothing more beyond those platonic little touches.

“I missed my chance. Get out my way.” Her tone was still harsh, breaking in places though she tried to hide it. Bag in hand, she was leaving.

She recognised the look on Phil’s face too, the determined, ruthless one he got just before he delivered the final blow to a weakening competitor.

He was strong and quick for a man with just one hand, but she’d always been slow to resist when it came to Coulson. Her shoulder blades dug against the door. He’d grabbed her and thrown her against the wood, trapping her. Chest to chest. He had her on the ropes.

“I’m not dead yet.” Even after everything, his voice was level.

Lips close enough she could feel the air from his lungs brushing against them. May’s eyes fluttered shut involuntarily, all the anger she had been collecting, storing inside, seeping away. She thought she had almost forgotten what it was like to kiss him, but it would always be something she could never have completely buried. So many years later and all it took was the mere memory for her to be able to imagine the exact shape of his lips against hers. And then suddenly it wasn’t a memory anymore, and she didn’t know who had closed the gap. Arms drawing around her waist, contrastingly warm and cold hands against the skin of her back. Her own nimble fingers scraping through the short hair at the nape of his neck. Short breaths, then again.

She grasped the door handle, his mouth still on her, her other hand at his jaw. She pushed him away gently as she twisted, releasing the door behind her, pushing it open, taking a step away. Again.

He watched, waiting silently, anxious, as she pulled the backpack over her shoulder.

“See you in a couple of weeks, Director.” She smiled, it was small, wiry. His favourite kind.

He smiled back knowingly. He had a feeling this time she was telling the truth.

 

 

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__please follow me at[coulsonskids](http://www.coulsonskids.tumblr.com/) on tumblr! i'm taking prompts_ _

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